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Tankless water heater or the convetional tank heater?

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    Tankless water heater or the convetional tank heater?

    Ok, so today I open my garage and found a river of water coming from under my water heater. Sure enough tank had its last days. I have never changed a water heater in my life so I need some advice. Should I go with the tankless water heater or should I go with the tank model?

    Currently my water heater was controlled by HS, It would shut off the power to it when the alarm was active. This method helped save a lot with the electric bill.
    I also have to mention that my home is powered by solar panels, so my electric bill is almost cero (I have to pay for the meter $15,00)

    So my question is, should I invest in a costly tankless water? Or should I go with a normal tank heater?
    Hector
    ____________________________________
    Win.2003 OS, HS3
    BLDSC,BLstat,BLRadar,BLRamdom,BLOccupied
    BLups,BLrain8,HSTouch,Ultrajones Weatherbug,
    MyTrigger,ACRF2,W800,Zwave
    AP800,Honeywell Stat

    #2
    Personally up north it is just a 50 gallon gas tank heater. Gas is inexpensive and I never touch the water heater.

    In FL it used to be a solar heater supplemented by electric water tank heater which rarely utilized much electricity.

    Heat pump style water heaters are common .

    I know the newer style of tank less water heaters are better today than yesteryear.

    I had one in the 1970's and didn't like the on demand stuff.

    If you solar panel can handle it without a ding; then go for comfort.

    Here is what Consumer's report states.

    Finding the best water heater.

    So my question is, should I invest in a costly tankless water? Or should I go with a normal tank heater?

    Go for a water heater that uses a heat pump.
    - Pete

    Auto mator
    Homeseer 3 Pro - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e 64 bit Intel Haswell CPU 16Gb
    Homeseer Zee2 (Lite) - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e - CherryTrail x5-Z8350 BeeLink 4Gb BT3 Pro
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    HS4 Pro - V4.1.18.1 - Ubuntu 22.04 / Lenova Tiny M900 / 32Gb Ram
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    Comment


      #3
      How many people in the house? If less than six then your answer is a heat pump HW heater. Depending on the size of your household and occasional guests your tank size will grown or shrink
      Originally posted by rprade
      There is no rhyme or reason to the anarchy a defective Z-Wave device can cause

      Comment


        #4
        I was looking at getting a gas fired tankless water heater and when I asked an installer, he told me that if you intend in being in your house for 20 years, then maybe. The ROI is very long and he recommended I go with a standard tank. He also asked if I every ran out of hot water - to which I said no. Again, he sad the cost of a tankless water heater is very high and it would not be overly beneficial to to go tankless. That was 3 years ago.
        After getting sick and tired of paying $30 each month for a water heater rental, Lowes had a 50 gal GWS water heater on sale this fall and had it delivered and installed for $1300. I'm glad I went this route...
        HS3PRO 3.0.0.500 as a Fire Daemon service, Windows 2016 Server Std Intel Core i5 PC HTPC Slim SFF 4GB, 120GB SSD drive, WLG800, RFXCom, TI103,NetCam, UltraNetcam3, BLBackup, CurrentCost 3P Rain8Net, MCsSprinker, HSTouch, Ademco Security plugin/AD2USB, JowiHue, various Oregon Scientific temp/humidity sensors, Z-Net, Zsmoke, Aeron Labs micro switches, Amazon Echo Dots, WS+, WD+ ... on and on.

        Comment


          #5
          In my case I want to run out of hot water as that's the only time the kids get out of the shower. I couldn't imagine how long they'd be in there if we had tankless Have a natural gas one here too which is very common in Western Canada.

          Cheers
          Al
          HS 4.2.8.0: 2134 Devices 1252 Events
          Z-Wave 3.0.10.0: 133 Nodes on one Z-Net

          Comment


            #6
            [QUOTE=S-F;1225427]How many people in the house? If less than six then your answer is a heat pump HW heater. Depending on the size of your household and occasional guests your tank size will grown or shrink[/QUOTE

            My home is 1950 Sqft. 2 bath home. Currently me and my wife are living here, but are kids come visit us a lot. Aren't Heat pump model more expensive then tankless? How about maintence cost?
            Hector
            ____________________________________
            Win.2003 OS, HS3
            BLDSC,BLstat,BLRadar,BLRamdom,BLOccupied
            BLups,BLrain8,HSTouch,Ultrajones Weatherbug,
            MyTrigger,ACRF2,W800,Zwave
            AP800,Honeywell Stat

            Comment


              #7
              We have two houses. The one in Seattle came with a tankless water heater, which the builder installed in part because there was little space for a regular water heater, and in part to sell the home as "Eco." Our house in Arizona has a regular tank water heater. Both are natural gas.

              The cost differential for heating the water comes down to the regular tank water heater having to heat 40-50-60 gallons all the time, even when water is not being used. The six months of the year when we're not in Arizona, and the only gas appliance that's being used in the tank water heater, results in gas usage fees of about two to three dollars a bunch (above and beyond the minimum service charge). Granted, the water heater is in the garage, where in the summer in Arizona it can easily reach 110 F.

              Let's triple that to nine dollars a month. Say $100/year in stand-by costs, at absolute most. The "payback" from getting a tankless is just not worth it. That is, I wouldn't go tankless unless your circumstances warrant it:

              (1). You commonly run out of hot water (big family).
              (2). No space for a regular hot water heater.

              Otherwise, I don't see the point of the tankless. Because I had never had a tankless before, I did call a service guy when we first bought the house. He said that they're like regular water heaters in that no maintenance is needed -- unless you have hard water. If you have hard water (we don't) scale can develop, which means that more energy is used to heat the water (to heat through the scale) and/or you're not going to get as much hot water as you should.

              Also, a regular tank hot water heater, even the fancy ones (power vent etc), are still relatively simple devices. The tankless, holy cow -- when the guy opened up the panel, I thought I was looking at the Death Star. I would definitely ensure that there was a ten year warranty on a tankless. If something goes wrong out of warranty, I imagine it's a costly proposition.

              Comment


                #8
                i would go with a standard one unless you run out of water.

                i have a instant natural gas one in my house but it is also the boiler for the heat and i like it but it does take about 10 seconds to fire up when you first turn the water on so i have considered putting a small 2 gallon one after it but it isn't that bad now as i just tell alexa to turn on the hot water and she turns on the recirculating pump for 15min so it gets everything primed with hot water

                the heat pump ones are really really noisy so if you go that route make sure you can't hear it from the house, also they do have issues (one of the houses i stay at in Florida has one and it may just be bad luck but we are only there for a few days a year but twice in the past 5 years it has quit while we were there and required service/new motherboard

                Comment


                  #9
                  Since HS shuts the water heater when I am not home saving electricity and since my solar panel deliver more power then what the house consumes (in a sunny day), I think that going with the tank model should be a good idea. Less maintenance and cost. Do you agree?
                  Hector
                  ____________________________________
                  Win.2003 OS, HS3
                  BLDSC,BLstat,BLRadar,BLRamdom,BLOccupied
                  BLups,BLrain8,HSTouch,Ultrajones Weatherbug,
                  MyTrigger,ACRF2,W800,Zwave
                  AP800,Honeywell Stat

                  Comment


                    #10
                    I did a bit of research into this about a year ago. I bought one of these for my father for his shop...

                    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...rch_detailpage

                    I tested it and it did 2.1 gpm of hot water at the 50% setting and the water was too hot for me to keep my hand under.

                    Even though the above model is designed to be a point of use unit, since the most water I ever use at one time is taking a shower (less than 2gpm total and a mix of hot/cold water) I bought one for myself to install for a whole house heater (they were $179 at the time). I was going to install it such that I could use either the tankless or my old tank one by turning a few valves and flipping the breaker back on for the tank heater.. I never did get this installed yet... ugh, never enough time!

                    Anyway, point being, if you don't use hot water in more than one place at a time, a smaller unit like the above I would think would work fine for you and may be even less money than a unit with a tank and should take less money to run I would think. Just something to think about. May not be for you but I had worked it out and it seemed like the tankless was the better route for me.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Tankless units use a LOT of electricity or gas. Unless there are a lot of bathers a tankless unit never makes financial sense. Steibel Eltron makes the best tankless and heat pump DHW heaters. They are virtually silent. It is true that they cost a lot more than a conventional unit but usually there are rebates that even out the difference. I know that for example here in MA when ungrading to a GE GeoSpring unit the home owner basically only pays for the install. Now a Steibel unit does cost more. You also get the added benefit of AC and humidification from a heat pump heater. In a hot and humid climate like FL, to me, it's a no brainer. When you run your AC you're spending electricity, dumping all that hot air and moisture outside and instead that power and heat could be going to heating your hot water. I have been toying with the idea of a HP DHW heater for here to just use during the summer.
                      Originally posted by rprade
                      There is no rhyme or reason to the anarchy a defective Z-Wave device can cause

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Since HS shuts the water heater when I am not home saving electricity and since my solar panel deliver more power then what the house consumes (in a sunny day), I think that going with the tank model should be a good idea. Less maintenance and cost. Do you agree?

                        Yes.

                        I would address maybe going analogue with a timer of sorts and using Homeseer as a secondary means of management of your hot water heater. Not sure on the draw of the water heater amperage wise. I mean a contactor is suggested depending on the draw. That said you do not want to mess with the functions that are built in to the water heater.

                        I am only mentioning this because if something happens to Homeseer and it does become dysfunctional will it affect your hot water heating or functions and will that cause issues? Or if you do not care that it gets left on or off then really it's not an issue.
                        - Pete

                        Auto mator
                        Homeseer 3 Pro - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e 64 bit Intel Haswell CPU 16Gb
                        Homeseer Zee2 (Lite) - 3.0.0.548 (Linux) - Ubuntu 18.04/W7e - CherryTrail x5-Z8350 BeeLink 4Gb BT3 Pro
                        HS4 Lite - Ubuntu 22.04 / Lenovo Tiny M900 / 32Gb Ram

                        HS4 Pro - V4.1.18.1 - Ubuntu 22.04 / Lenova Tiny M900 / 32Gb Ram
                        HSTouch on Intel tabletop tablets (Jogglers) - Asus AIO - Windows 11

                        X10, UPB, Zigbee, ZWave and Wifi MQTT automation-Tasmota-Espurna. OmniPro 2, Russound zoned audio, Alexa, Cheaper RFID, W800 and Home Assistant

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by S-F View Post
                          Tankless units use a LOT of electricity or gas. Unless there are a lot of bathers a tankless unit never makes financial sense.
                          I think it's opposite of that? I did the math for myself and since I use hot water for about 7 minutes a day when I take a shower, the tankless I got would use less electricity plus costs less than a 40 gallon tanked one. I did actual kw/hr measurements too and the smaller tankless like I have would save me around $10 a month at $0.147 kw/hr of electricity costs as compared to my 40 gallon one running all day when I used hot water only for a brief period during the day. Oh, what else I found was interesting is it didn't really take much to KEEP my tanked water heater on all day rather than switching it which I found to be odd. It seemed like after I took a shower the vast majority of the electricity used during the day was used right after I took the shower to re-heat the water initially. What else surprised me is my water heater is 25 years old and has an OLD yellow energy efficiency sticker that indicates it costs over $700 a year to run it at $.14 kw/hr and for a single person household, that was WAY off. It is more like $170 a year for me and I took a month's worth of data and it was very consistent for day to day power use. I thought a tankless would be WAY cheaper but it turns out only around $10 a month cheaper for how I was using my hot water.

                          Of course, I now have a live in girlfriend so have to re-do all the numbers to see if it's still beneficial for me with two people.

                          Not at all saying this is the best financially for everyone but for a single guy who used hot water mostly just to take a shower each day for less than 10 minutes, the math worked out to be a little better with a tankless that cost only $179

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Extreme-Z View Post
                            I think it's opposite of that? I did the math for myself and since I use hot water for about 7 minutes a day when I take a shower, the tankless I got would use less electricity plus costs less than a 40 gallon tanked one. I did actual kw/hr measurements too and the smaller tankless like I have would save me around $10 a month at $0.147 kw/hr of electricity costs as compared to my 40 gallon one running all day when I used hot water only for a brief period during the day. Oh, what else I found was interesting is it didn't really take much to KEEP my tanked water heater on all day rather than switching it which I found to be odd. It seemed like after I took a shower the vast majority of the electricity used during the day was used right after I took the shower to re-heat the water initially. What else surprised me is my water heater is 25 years old and has an OLD yellow energy efficiency sticker that indicates it costs over $700 a year to run it at $.14 kw/hr and for a single person household, that was WAY off. It is more like $170 a year for me and I took a month's worth of data and it was very consistent for day to day power use. I thought a tankless would be WAY cheaper but it turns out only around $10 a month cheaper for how I was using my hot water.

                            Of course, I now have a live in girlfriend so have to re-do all the numbers to see if it's still beneficial for me with two people.

                            Not at all saying this is the best financially for everyone but for a single guy who used hot water mostly just to take a shower each day for less than 10 minutes, the math worked out to be a little better with a tankless that cost only $179
                            Originally posted by rprade
                            There is no rhyme or reason to the anarchy a defective Z-Wave device can cause

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Oh hold on a minute... what do you mean "doesn't shower much"? For a guy who works in air conditioning all day, I always thought once a day was enough? LOL!

                              Also, I live in Florida where the water coming out of the ground is 72 degrees so that makes a difference. I also ate out almost all the time so didn't really have dishes and don't use hot water for laundry (warm and cold or something like that hahaha) and only needed to do laundry like once every week and a half or so.

                              I'm going to do some testing now that I have a lady in the house. I suspect it will be much different because the dish washer runs every other day as does the washing machine it seems. Hahaha!

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